


we need a human touch

by engolras



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M, Non-Chronological, Trans Male Character, others are there but those 4 get the most attention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 10:52:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17364644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engolras/pseuds/engolras
Summary: "If you had all the time and resources you needed, I’m sure that all of you could find some remedy to this.  But as things are?  All I see are doomed people setting themselves up for failure, and soon it won’t be failures that we can all bounce back from.”In what are supposed to be his last few months as a human being, Grantaire gets invested in saving himself.





	we need a human touch

**Author's Note:**

> I want to establish right off the bat that the werewolf set up I use here is lifted directly from Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver, Linger, Forever, and Sinner novels. I thought that the ticking clock element worked really well for producing conflict which is why I used it, but I don't want anyone thinking I came up with it.
> 
> The title is a lyric (of course) from "Touch" by July Talk, which became the song I most associate with this beast over the last few months.
> 
> The scenes in present tense are chronological in relation to each other, but the ones in past tense aren't and since they're between the ones in present tense I felt the non-chronological tag was probably needed.
> 
> Brief warnings for: vague mentions of both an abusive household and father figure, descriptions of how shifting is painful but nothing overly graphic (throwing up is brought up as part of it, but it's not described), mentions of alcoholism, two characters essentially using their werewolf condition as a method of self harm, and - while there isn't any in the end - an overarching fear of character death throughout. There is some talk of past character death though.

He’s following a scent only because it smells somewhat familiar.  His head hurts and he can’t think straight and he’s following this scent as if his life depends on it.  There’s a fainter scent too, a little further away, and if his eyes were working properly he’d be able to see one of the two other remaining members of his pack through the trees, following that faint scent as desperately as he is following his.  He knows by now that this is how they all disappear every year. Someone will always wander off, and then they all slowly begin to follow, fully controlled by the half human, half wolf scent on the edge of the treeline.

The scent is suddenly stronger meaning that the source of it has moved closer, and his leg slips in the mud.  He tries to catch himself, but only succeeds in gathering dirt under his claws. The sun is suddenly brighter and he looks away from it.  The ache in his bones steadily increases and his jaw feels like it’s pressing in on itself. The trees break up ahead and he finds himself speeding up - as much as he can now that’s he’s limping - instead of turning back around.  There’s a rule that they could not leave the forest itself, and in the back of his mind he knows it was a rule that everyone else had broken. All except for him, another who was probably out by now, and one who never leaves.

The sun is even brighter without the cover of the trees, no matter how flimsy that was at times.  He stumbles closer to the scent until he bumps into the source of it. The human sinks to a crouch and holds out their hand, looking down and away from his eyes.  He nudges the hand, which is drenched in the scent he’d followed, and the hand slowly moves to the top of his head. He struggles to keep standing, and the steady heat of the hand resting on him isn’t making it any easier.  The sun beats down on his back, and he feels the muscles beneath his skin begin to move. He falls to the ground and writhes at the feet of the human who lured him out. For only a few minutes, and still far too long, all he can feel is searing pain as his bones move and bend and stretch and pop and crack and mend.

His consciousness comes back to him as his fur recedes into his skin just enough that he can see more skin than hair.  He feels the lingering presence in his mind push against him, as it always does, and he knows by now that he’s no longer a wolf.  

Grantaire looks up at Enjolras when he feels human enough and is surprised to find that Enjolras’ hand is still resting on his head.

“Welcome back,” Enjolras says, drawing his hand back.

 

Grantaire had a history of misconceptions that often lead him down less than desirable paths.  Believing that a guy who appeared out of nowhere and who didn’t know anybody in town had Grantaire’s best interests at heart was probably the highest on the list.  Therefore he didn’t think he was overreacting by feeling untrustworthy of the man who just walked in with the sickly smell of an oncoming shift rolling off of him in waves.

It was Halloween and Grantaire would usually be out getting drunk with whatever group of people he’d found during the summer that tolerated him, but he hadn’t bothered to find anyone that summer.  He’d mostly been travelling over the past few months and had only stopped in this town because he’d begun to notice that he shifted earlier each year and he didn’t feel like becoming a wolf in the middle of a highway.  He could still spend an hour or so outside in a jacket before the now familiar pain began to spread throughout his bones, so he decided to ignore that by getting drunk. He thought he’d been doing pretty well until that smell had caught his attention.

The other werewolf moved towards him, doubtlessly having noticed Grantaire the minute he entered the building.  He was a big man; judging by the looks of him he could probably take Grantaire down after a minute or two of a fair fight - something Grantaire would never admit to his face.  Unless that was something he was supposed to do. He’d never met anyone else like him aside from the man who’d bitten him, and that particular instance hadn’t ended in an etiquette lesson of how to interact with other wolves in human form.  He’d barely been there through Grantaire’s beginning shifts; he’d left him there to writhe on the floor, drifting in and out of consciousness, sometimes catching glimpses of clawed hands slipping into puddles of blood and vomit. Guiding Grantaire through the process of being a wolf was not high on his priority list.  Grantaire chalked the fact that he was even bitten up to that the man wanted to experience some sort of power trip, even if he hadn’t stuck around to see the results.

“Haven’t seen you around town before.”

Grantaire was shaken out of his thoughts by the voice of the other wolf, who now sat in the booth across from him.  Grantaire made brief eye contact before remembering that he was probably encroaching the guy’s territory. He quickly shifted his eyes to look at the man’s hands.

“I haven’t been here too long.”

The man nodded.  “Makes sense then.”  He stuck his hand out towards Grantaire.  “Name’s Bahorel.”

Grantaire shook Bahorel’s hand.  He made eye contact with Bahorel again to test the waters and didn’t sense any animosity from him.  “Grantaire.”

“Been like this long?”

“Drinking? Always.  Wolfy? About six years now, I think.”

Grantaire knew exactly how long he’d been like this, but divulging that bit of information may have made him seem a bit obsessed.

Bahorel winced, obviously knowing something Grantaire didn’t, but Grantaire wasn’t sure if he was allowed to ask what the wince was for yet.

“That sucks.  It’s only been five years for me.”

Grantaire wasn’t going to ask if the use of the word “only” was significant.  He wasn’t sure he even wanted to know.

He had plenty of other things he would like to know, however.

“Shifting’s painful for all of us, right?”

“Oh yeah.”  Bahorel took a swig of the drink he’d brought over.  “Bones rearranging, vomiting, all that fun stuff? Totally normal.  Don’t know how much of a relief that is to you, but...” Bahorel shrugged.

“It’s a bit of a relief, I guess?”  Grantaire drank the last of his lukewarm beer.  “At least I know everyone’s in the same boat.”

Bahorel snorted.  “True enough.”

Grantaire sorted through the other questions he’d never been able to ask before, trying to decide which were the most pressing.

“Do you know any other wolves?  Like, are packs a thing? We’re sort of like bargain brand wolves so I’m wondering how many wolf things we get.”

Grantaire was belatedly thankful that this bar didn’t have anything stronger than what was in his hand.  It was one of the few times he wanted to be aware of everything.

“Oh yeah, packs are a thing.”  Bahorel sipped his beer before continuing.  “Kind of. Nothing really official, but we tend to group together.  I’m in one, technically.”

“Really?  How many of you are there?”

Bahorel used the fingers not wrapped around his bottle to count as he muttered names that Grantaire couldn’t quite make out under his breath.

“Including me there’s eight of us.  No, wait, nine.”

Grantaire set his bottle down on the table and looked at Bahorel with something akin to awe.  “How did you all manage to find each other? You’re only the second wolf I’ve ever knowingly encountered.”

“Some of us knew each other before, some of us were drawn here by the smell, and some of us showed up coincidentally, so the answer depends on the person.  I just came into town to get gas one day and ran into Courfeyrac who immediately introduced me to everyone.”

“So do you all live here year round?”

Bahorel nodded and finished his drink.  “Valjean - an older guy who’s like us - opened his doors a few years ago and we’ve all been pouring in since.  I still can’t believe that man trusts us enough to live there.”

“You all live in the same house?”  The idea of that many housemates was a bit daunting to Grantaire.

“Yeah, it’s easier to keep track of who’s going wolfy when that way.  Plus we get to split the heat and electricity bills which would all drive us into bankruptcy if we had to pay them on our own.”

Grantaire sat back in his chair and debated whether or not to ask another question.  Bahorel didn’t seem to mind answering him, but Grantaire still wasn’t sure where the boundaries lay.  He found himself wishing, not for the first time, for some kind of manual. Maybe a Werewolfism for Dummies.  Some form of guidelines would be nice.

“Do you wanna meet the others?” Bahorel asked, once again breaking Grantaire out of his thoughts.

Grantaire nodded.  “Yeah, sure.”

Bahorel stood up, his boots booming against the dark floorboards.  “There’s probably room for you somewhere in the house. Maybe the bathtub, but hey, it counts.”

Grantaire wondered what it was about him that made Bahorel so sure he wanted to stay.

Grantaire followed Bahorel out of the bar and they both shivered after stepping through the exit.  A couple walked past them without jackets on and Grantaire swore he could feel envy rolling off of Bahorel.  That was probably another wolf thing now that he thought about it.

They walked through the shops of what the town called “downtown” and what Grantaire called “the broken up stripmall”, and Bahorel gave a brief review of every store they passed.  Grantaire contained the urge to interrupt with more questions because, while he was pretty sure that Bahorel wasn’t the one in charge - that was probably Valjean - he didn’t want to intrude more than he already had.  If a book on wolf etiquette was too much to ask for a small pamphlet would still be highly appreciated.

“Here we are!” Bahorel announced, arms opened wide.  

Grantaire wasn’t usually one to judge others for how they lived, but nine people living in what looked like a small repair shop didn’t seem like the wisest of life choices.

“You live here?”

Bahorel looked at him with a confused expression before he realized how his statement had been taken.  “Nah, but our ride to the house is here.” Bahorel knocked on the door, ignoring the sign stating the store was closed, and yelled, “You in there or what?”

Grantaire heard a muffled “Hold on” from somewhere inside the store, and heard the old circuit of the fluorescent light by the door open before he saw the light come on.  He wasn’t sure whether that was due to his enhanced hearing or if the circuit itself was just that loud.

The door swung open and the scent of another wolf tumbled into the street.  Grantaire had at least expected it this time and wasn’t as overwhelmed as he’d been when he’d first taken notice of Bahorel’s presence.

“You’re here uncharacteristically early,” the new guy said.  His nose twitched in Grantaire’s direction before he turned to look at him.  “Who’s this?”

“Feuilly, Grantaire.  Grantaire, Feuilly.” Bahorel gestured to them both in turn.

Feuilly held out his hand and Grantaire shook it, maintaining eye contact this time.

“New to town?” Feuilly asked.

Grantaire nodded.  “Originally planned for this to be more of a pit stop if anything, but it’s getting too cold to really travel any further now.”

Feuilly nodded.  “Too true.”

“He wants to meet everyone,” Bahorel said.

Feuilly raised his eyebrows.  “Tired of the lone wolf lifestyle?”

Grantaire shrugged.  “Partially. I’m mostly just curious.”

“Can’t say I blame you.  Going it alone just gets depressing after a while.”  Feuilly glanced over his shoulder into the shop. “Give me a second to finish up and then we’ll head home.”  He looked at Bahorel. “You should call and tell the others that we’re bringing someone with us.”

“I would if my phone weren’t broken.”

“You asked Bossuet to hold on to it before you tried to do parkour while he was still nearby; how could you expect a different outcome?”  Feuilly fished through his pockets and pulled out his phone. He tried to turn it on, but the phone didn’t respond to his commands. “Dead,” he announced.  He turned to Grantaire. “You don’t have a phone we can use, do you?”

Grantaire shook his head.  “Never bothered to get one.”

“Well, none of them should be too thrown off by it,” Feuilly decided.  “Courf will be overjoyed, if anything.”

Feuilly’s hand disappeared into his pocket again, and he swapped the non-functioning phone for a key.  He handed it to Bahorel.

“Go warm up the car while I lock things up.”

“Yes, sir,” Bahorel replied jokingly.

Feuilly flipped Bahorel off in return before he retreated into the store.

Bahorel nudged Grantaire’s shoulder with his own.  “Come on.”

Grantaire followed him to the other side of the shop and stopped when the vehicle came into sight.

“I gotta say, the soccer mom van wasn’t what I expected.”

Bahorel snorted.  “The truck’s getting repaired, lucky for you, otherwise we would have had to get up close and personal.”  Bahorel pressed a button and the car beeped as it unlocked itself. “Valjean’s the one who bought the thing originally, but I wouldn’t call him a soccer mom.”

“What would you call him then?” Grantaire asked, pulling the van door open.  

“Big and wolfy,” Bahorel replied, as he sat in the passenger seat.

“Bigger and wolfier than you?”

“Oh, definitely.”  Bahorel put the key in the ignition and turned it.  The heater burst to life automatically. “Whether we’re talking old man or dog, I wouldn’t test my luck trying to take him down.”

Feuilly opened the driver’s door halfway through Bahorel’s statement, and slammed the door shut once he was inside.

“Fucking freezing out there,” Feuilly muttered, fastening his seat belt.

“Well if you stopped taking the closing shift -”

“I’m not above making you walk home.”  Feuilly put the car in reverse. “Put on your seatbelt, or we’re not going anywhere.”

“Whatever, mom.”

Although he was fairly sure the threat of walking didn’t apply to him, Grantaire quickly pulled on his seatbelt as well.

The drive to the house mostly consisted of Grantaire asking general questions about how their shared condition worked, and had many of his suspicions confirmed.  The shift being triggered by cold weather was obvious, but there were other things he hadn’t been able to piece together himself. The time limit on how long they were able to shift before they would stop and be stuck as wolves - ten years - that shifts would still happen in a warmer climate and would occur at any drop in the temperature, and how people are turned.  Apparently, the cells that cause the shifts can be carried through the blood or saliva of a werewolf and injected into the person the wolf is turning.

“So it’s done through biting?” Grantaire asked.

“Mostly,” Feuilly answered.

“Does it only work when the person’s a wolf or…?”

“If you’re right on the edge of shifting, then you have a good chance of succeeding in turning the other person as a human,” Feuilly explained.

“But it’s really only a guarantee if you bite the person while you’re a wolf,” Bahorel added.

Grantaire was thankful that Feuilly and Bahorel didn’t ask why he suddenly stopped asking questions.  His thoughts for the rest of the ride centered around the all too human man who’d turned him.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when Feuilly stopped the car and spoke.

“I’m heading in to give some warning.”

“By some, you mean ‘warn everyone but Courf’?” Bahorel asked.

“Duh,” Feuilly answered as he hopped out of the van.  He shut the door behind him and made his way to the house.

“The others don’t like surprises as much?” Grantaire asked, taking off his seatbelt.

“Most of them do,” Bahorel told him, turning around in his seat to face Grantaire.  “But a new wolf suddenly appearing in your home isn’t something one generally appreciates.”

“Except this Courf guy.”

“He’s more of a puppy than a wolf.  More territorial about his friends than his house really.”

Grantaire was about to reply when he noticed the curtains of - what he assumed was - the living room window open to reveal a bald head, squinting out into the darkness towards the van.

“Who’s that?” Grantaire asked.

Bahorel turned to look and waved once he and the bald guy made eye contact.  “That’s Bossuet. Believe it or not, he’s got the thickest fur out of all us.”

A smaller, hair covered head popped up beside Bossuet and waved to Bahorel as well.

“That’s Cosette,” Bahorel said before Grantaire had the chance to ask who it was.  “She’s Valjean’s daughter.”

Bossuet turned and said something to someone behind him, and Cosette laughed at whatever it was.  Grantaire hadn’t even set foot in the house and already felt like he was intruding.

The front door of the house opened, and Feuilly’s silhouette beckoned the two of them to come in.  Grantaire and Bahorel swiftly exited the vehicle - Bahorel nearly forgot to take the key out of the ignition - and they made their way up the steps, and through the door.

“Last anyone saw him, which was a good twenty minutes ago, Courf was about to take a shower,” Feuilly told Grantaire as he closed the door, “so you’ve got maybe three minutes before he descends upon you.”

Grantaire looked around the porch as he nudged his shoes off onto the mat where Bahorel had kicked his.  There was a large set of stairs only a few steps away, and many doors branching off into different rooms and hallways.  He followed Feuilly and Bahorel as they walked to the left of the stairs, and took his time looking at the pictures that hung on the walls.  Most of them were of Cosette, which wasn’t surprising given that this was her father’s house, but there were a few where she wasn’t alone. There were quite a few of her at a young age with a man Grantaire assumed was Valjean.  Grantaire definitely understood what Bahorel had meant, even if Valjean looked much happier than Grantaire had expected him to look.

He was about to turn and look at the pictures hanging on the opposite wall when all the scents in the house finally caught up to him.  He’d managed to ignore most of the regular house scents when he came through the door, but the further inside he went the more pronounced those scents became, not to mention the scents of other wolves.  Some were distinct, some mingled together, and the intensity of each scent kept changing at a rapid rate. Grantaire put his hand on the wall so that he wouldn’t fall over from the assault on his nose.

“Are you alright?”

Grantaire looked up towards the kitchen doorway where the voice had come from, and almost fell over a second time.  Both the sight and the scent of the person in the doorway knocked him off balance. He sincerely hoped that it was some weird wolf thing that made him so uneasy, and not just the fact that this person would have made Grantaire a little weak in the knees even if he weren’t overstimulated.

Grantaire coughed and stood up straight, in what was probably a failed attempt at retaining the appearance of having dignity.  “Yeah, just… uh…”

“Overwhelmed?”

Grantaire nodded.  “A bit, yeah.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised by that.”  

Grantaire wasn’t sure whether the tone was supposed to be mocking or sympathetic, nor was he sure which one he would rather it be.

“But I don’t doubt that you’ll adjust.”  The person held out their hand. “I’m Enjolras.”

Grantaire barely registered the sound of footsteps pounding against the floor above him as he stared at Enjolras’ hand.  Grantaire wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to make eye contact, or if he was supposed to keep his head down, or if he was supposed to make brief eye contact before looking away.  The idea of a handy dandy pamphlet may have been a joke before, but it would have served as a saviour now.

“I knew it!”

Grantaire jumped in surprise, and looked up to the stairs.  A man stood above him, hands clutching the rail, with a blinding smile on his face.

“I never said you were wrong,” said a voice from upstairs.

“That’s because I’m never wrong,” the man on the stairs called back.  He ran down the remaining stairs at an impressive speed, marched up to Grantaire, and took his somewhat outstretched hand.  “I’m Courfeyrac, Mysterious Newcomer.”

Grantaire tried to contribute to the handshake, but Courfeyrac seemed perfectly content with doing most of the work.  “Grantaire.”

“Well, Grantaire, before anything else I have to introduce you to everyone and take you on the grand tour.  Then I’ll probably ask you about your dramatic backstory, which can have as many or as few details as you feel comfortable with.  You’ve already met Enjolras, but do you know anybody else yet?”

“Bahorel and Feuilly brought him here,” Enjolras informed him, their arms now crossed over their chest with their hands tucked into the crook of their elbows.

“Damn, my Bahorel introduction is some of my best work.”  Courfeyrac shrugged. “I’ll just give it to you anyway.” Courfeyrac turned and walked down the hallway, back towards the porch.  “Let’s go meet the lady of the house first, shall we?”

Grantaire was surprised by how easily smiling came to him as he followed Courfeyrac.

 

Grantaire gets a text from Cosette asking him to come up to her room and can’t wrap his head around it.  He’s been to Cosette’s room plenty of times - once to help her rearrange the entire space, once to help her decorate, multiple times to remove a spider - but they always began with her finding him in person.  A vague text makes Grantaire wonder if it’s even Cosette on the other end.

He goes to her regardless.  The entire house would come running if Cosette called and he was no exception.

He knocks on the door, even though he knows she’s expecting him, before he opens it.

“So, uh, what’s up?”

Cosette sits on her bed with an unopened tissue box next to her.  Éponine sits behind Cosette, braiding her hair, which is a far bigger red flag than the tissues could ever dream to be.

Grantaire closes the door behind him and walks over to Cosette’s desk chair, sitting in it backwards so he faces the girls.

“How big of a deal are we going to make this into?” Cosette asks.

If it weren’t Cosette asking and if Éponine wasn’t partaking in her crisis routine, Grantaire would ask for some clarification.  As things are, he doesn't particularly want or need context.

He shrugs.  “What did you do when it was your dad?”

Cosette sighs.  “We ignored it until I got tired of pretending everything was fine.  We had a big, emotional argument that kinda put us back at square one, but at least we knew why we were there this time.  He’d spent the past few years putting things in place and, because some of the others had moved in by then, he knew Enjolras and I had other people we could count on once he was gone, so he just wanted those last few months to be as normal as possible.”  She picks up the tissue box but makes no move to open it. “Problem with that, of course, is that dread was our normal. Pretending otherwise probably made it worse.”

Cosette winced as Éponine accidentally tugged a strand of hair too hard.

“Sorry,” Éponine says.  “I keep forgetting your hair isn’t as stubborn as Azelma’s.”

“It’s okay,” Cosette says over her shoulder.

“Well, if you want everyone to make a big deal out of your last year so you can have a final hurrah,” Grantaire says, “then I’m not going to stop you.”

Cosette hums, amused.  “Not exactly what I’m aiming for, but sure.”  She tries to reach out and touch his arm before remembering that she can’t move all that far in her current position, so her hand falls back dramatically onto her bed.  

“If they make a big deal over me, they’ll do the same for you, you know,” she says in a conspiratory way.

He smiles knowingly in return.  “That they will.”

“Which leads us back to the original question.”

Grantaire’s eyes wander over the left side of the room as he thinks.  Cosette’s walls are nearly entirely covered in pictures of varying sizes.  There are a few of her and Valjean that she moved up from downstairs, a few of her and Enjolras looking absolutely ridiculous - it’s become somewhat less shocking over the past few years to Grantaire that it is, in fact, Enjolras in those pictures - quite a few of everyone else in the house, and an embarrassing number of ones of Éponine which Grantaire would relentlessly tease Cosette for if it weren’t an inappropriate thing to do at the moment.

His eyes land on the framed picture of Cosette’s mother that stands on the bedside table.  It’s a picture from before her sickness began to take a toll on her, and the resemblance to Cosette is uncanny.  

The idea comes to Grantaire so quickly that it nearly comes out of his mouth before it’s a fully formed thought.  He shuts his mouth as quickly as he opened it. He faces Cosette again.

“Everyone knows I’d make it difficult for them to make too big of a deal over me,” Grantaire says.  “Honestly, I was just planning to continue on as normal, but since my normal isn’t being quiet about any of this shit, it shouldn’t clash with however you want the next few months to go.”

Cosette gives him a small smile.  “I just want some sort of balance.  I want it acknowledged, but I don’t want it to get over the top.”

“We’ll find a way to make it work somehow.  It’s what we do,” he says, standing up. “I’ve got to check in with Joly on something, so shall I leave you two to…”  He makes a vague hand gesture in their direction.

Éponine, while continuing her work with Cosette’s hair, flips him off with something akin to a smile on her face.

“Tell him I said ‘hi’,” Cosette replies, grinning.

“Will do,” Grantaire says over his shoulder, on his way out of the room.

He closes the door softly behind him and takes a deep breath before he walks towards the stairs, down to the first floor, and through the door to the basement.

Joly is making a terrible pun when Grantaire walks in - one that even Grantaire himself wouldn’t be proud of.

“R!”  He waves at Grantaire as he descends the stairs.  Joly sits on the dryer with his legs crossed beneath him and his cane lying next to him.  “Did you want to join in on our mad scientist roleplay? Combeferre’s a bit lacking in the evil cackle department and I can’t do a convincing German accent.”

“What can I say?” Combeferre says.  “I’m much better at acting somewhat sensible.”

“A pity,” Joly heaves.  “There’s rarely ever any fun in that.”

“How witty,” Grantaire says.

Joly places a hand over his heart.  “Flattery will get you nowhere, monsieur, but please continue.”

Grantaire shakes his head, far too focused on his thoughts to get caught up in bantering with Joly.

“I bring you two things,” he announces.  “Well, Joly gets two, since I forgot to mention you, Combeferre.  Cosette sends her greetings.”

Joly whips out his phone, doubtlessly to text Cosette a greeting in return with far too many exclamation points.

“And what’s the second thing?” Combeferre asks.

“I have an idea.”

“About what, exactly?”

“A possible cure.”

Joly clenches his hands into the fists the way he does when he’s excited, and Combeferre tilts his head the way he does whenever he tries to make sense of a puzzle.

“What’s your idea?”

Grantaire rocks back and forth on his feet as he answers, “It has to do with Fantine’s fever.”

 

Grantaire didn’t think it was a particularly good sign that the one person who’d managed to be cured of werewolfhood also died as a result of her supposed cure.

Cosette, at the ripe old age of nine, had her life drastically changed when her biological father waltzed back into town and changed both her and her mother, the latter of whom was sick with a fever that reacted harshly with the wolf cells that eventually killed both the wolf and the woman in question.  

When Fantine arrived at the hospital both her scent and pleas for someone to check on her daughter attracted Valjean’s attention, and the hospital staff agreed immediately to let one of their most trusted volunteers, with past experience as a child and youth care worker, go look after the child.  Valjean helped Cosette immensely through her first week of shifting back and forth - as she’d been left alone shortly after she’d been bitten - and answered her and Fantine’s questions as best he could.

Fantine smelled of dead wolf for nearly two full days before she died herself.  Cosette was given next to no time to properly grieve - although not from a lack of effort on Valjean’s part - as the first snow of winter fell and her body and mind became canine.

Internal heat, it seemed, worked to kill the wolf whereas external heat alone did not.  The question of how much heat would it take to kill the wolf but leave the human intact had no precise answer, but Grantaire knew there had to be a sort of balance.  Regardless of the final outcome, Fantine outlived her wolf.

 

Grantaire has never really been exposed to drugs outside of caffeine, alcohol, and weed that one time in twelfth grade, so he feels a little out of place driving Éponine to the next town over to pick up a list of things he’s never even heard of.  

Grantaire had to back up after his dramatic statement to reassure Joly and Combeferre that he did not mean they should give everyone in the house a deadly fever.  He suggested instead that they should try to recreate the effects, namely the head, of said fever without actually using the virus itself. Get the body to a high enough temperature to burn the wolf out, and then introduce something to the body to bring the temperature back down to normal once the wolf is gone.  Joly and Combeferre were still a bit hesitant about the possible solution since there was so much potential danger to it, but they came to him the next morning with a list and outlined what their idea was.

Joly, Combeferre, and Grantaire give the list to Éponine, the only one in the house with any hope of accessing the contents of it, who requests that Grantaire accompany her.  Usually Bahorel tags along when Éponine drops by her hometown, but he’s working the day of, so Grantaire agrees to go.

“So who’s our dealer anyway?” he asks.

Éponine rolls her eyes.  “Don’t call him that, he’d love it.  And I’ve told you about Montparnasse before.”

Éponine had been quick to tell everyone how she and Marius got there.  Grantaire had never met someone who spoke as much and for as long as himself, and judging by how practiced Marius’ interjections to help her get back on track were, borderline monologues were the norm for her.

She’d known about wolves most of her life thanks to her parents.  Neither of them were wolves themselves until Éponine was fifteen, but she’d been surrounded by vials of saliva and the sound (and smells) of first shifts for as long as she could remember.  

Montparnasse was the first person who came to their door that she actually spoke to.  He was much closer to her in age than anyone else who’d come to the Thénardier house, only barely an adult in the eyes of the law.  He was also an oddity for arriving in the summer, most timing their visits for mid-fall.

He hadn’t been her first choice of Azelma and Gavroche’s temporary guardian for when Éponine would have to face her inevitable turning.  That honour had fallen to Marius who, while relatively new to town, had won Éponine over by listening to her.  He didn’t tell her nearly as much about himself as she told him about her, but Éponine knew he had family support to fall back on should he need it.  The relief Éponine felt upon seeing Marius treat her siblings as well as he did her was, in Éponine’s own words, indescribable.

The problem was explaining everything to Marius.  Or, rather, the fact that in all her talking she hadn’t told him everything.

Marius’ intervention got him bit along with Éponine, and her refusal to have them both shackled to her father’s group lead them to take their first shifts on the road.  Montparnasse drove them as far out of town as Éponine let him before demanding that he go back and make sure her siblings were safe.

He’d apparently followed through.  By the end of Éponine’s first week with them she reported that Azelma and Gavroche had someone to look after them that winter, possibly even permanently.  

While Grantaire has yet to meet the man in question, Father Mabeuf always goes out his way to make sure Éponine can spend as much time as possible with them during the summers, so he can’t say he’s too worried for the kids.

“You did,” Grantaire says, “I just didn’t know you were still in contact with him.”

“Take a left up here,” Éponine says, and not a moment too soon as Grantaire nearly misses the turn.

“I didn’t want to completely disappear on him,” she explains, looking down at her phone again despite there being no new messages.  “He’s…”

Éponine doesn’t immediately continue, but she’s far more silent than she tends to be when her brain is moving faster than her mouth.

“He’s…?” Grantaire prompts.

“Take the next right,” she says.

Grantaire’s willing to leave it at that, but she does answer him after a few seconds.

“I was with him during his first shift.  I was already there when my mother gave him the needle so I figured I’d stick around.  Admittedly, mostly because I was curious to see what I’d been hearing all those years. He asked me if I thought he was the only one who deliberately did this to himself.”

She points to the upcoming grocery store on their left.

“I told him and still believe that no, he wasn’t.  Too many people came through that house for him to be the only one.  But the fact that he knew what he was doing to himself, possibly before he even set foot on our doorstep, still sticks with me.  I don’t think I can really do anything to help him, and he’d definitely refuse any that I could offer, but I can at least avoid doing the harm of leaving him behind.  Knowing you’re only worth time and effort to someone when you can do something for them is a forgotten circle of Hell.”

Grantaire parks the car in silence, entirely unaware of what he should say.  Luckily, Éponine doesn’t seem to be expecting a response.

“Punctual as always,” Éponine says, unbuckling her seatbelt.

Grantaire watches her leave the car and approach a man leaning against the building a few feet away from the entrance with three entirely too full plastic bags sporting the store’s logo on them.  He looks entirely out of place, sporting an outfit so goth that the Grantaire of tenth grade was envious.

While Grantaire has no doubt that Éponine was telling the truth, he can’t help but be suspicious of how many layers Montparnasse is wearing in the last week of May.

 

Grantaire had a tendency to be argumentative just for the sake of it.  It was fairly rare for Grantaire to really agree with whatever argument he was making, and most of his friends had caught onto that and took everything he said with a grain of salt.  Unfortunately, they were too considerate to ask if the views he expressed on werewolfism were ones he actually agreed with.

Grantaire’s impulse control was lacking most of the time, which is why he ended up spilling the majority of the details of how he was turned a week after he arrived.  It was one of those nights where it sounded like the wind was out to blow buildings down, so everyone was in the house and at the dining room table for once. Grantaire wasn’t sure how it got brought up, but he spilled one detail and everyone looked curious and Grantaire realized that he needed to invest in some self-discipline lessons.

No one had responded for quite some time until Enjolras began a long winded explanation of how they were trying to find a cure as if it was the most comforting thing any of them could say to Grantaire in that moment.  

Grantaire had said it was rather presumptuous to think that he wanted to be cured, and Enjolras didn’t speak a word to him for the rest of the night.  

Enjolras was the only one to ever outright argue with Grantaire about it.  The others managed to contain themselves - and each other - from talking about it with him.  He assumed they were just too nice to meddle in his affairs. Enjolras, on the other hand, seemed to make it his own personal mission to convince Grantaire otherwise.

“You should really put some more clothes on,” Enjolras said, the tips of his fingers only just visible from the inside of his sweater sleeves.

“I thought you were against shaming people for their clothing choices,” Grantaire replied as he stepped into the kitchen in shorts and a t-shirt.

“It’s cold,” Enjolras said, too used to Grantaire’s taunts by now to fall for them.

Grantaire snorted.  “Tell that to my sweat.  I’m pretty sure the heaters are gonna burn the house down at this rate.”

“It’s a precaution,” Enjolras said, moving to the tea cupboard above the kettle.

“I still don’t see the purpose in prolonging the inevitable.”  Grantaire knew he was only digging a deeper hole for himself, but he figured the hole was already too deep to climb out of.

“I still don’t see how you take joy in it.”  Enjolras stood on his toes to reach for the box of tea he wanted, but his fingers only just brushed it.

“I wouldn’t call it joy,” Grantaire replied.  He walked around the island towards the tea cupboard.  

“What would you call it then?”  Enjolras quickly pulled his hand away as Grantaire reached for the tea.

Grantaire put the box on the counter.  “Acceptance.”

Enjolras opened the box and snatched a tea bag from it.  “Resignation doesn’t sound very appealing.”

“Probably because you’re not very good at it.”  Grantaire pulled himself up to sit on the island.  “You shouldn’t have your binder on, you know.”

Enjolras threw a glare over his shoulder.  “It’s not that cold yet.”

Grantaire raised an eyebrow.  “So it’s cold enough for you to have the heaters on the Fires of Hell setting and a sweater on, but not cold enough for you to keep your own safety in mind?”

“Cosette was exaggerating,” Enjolras insisted, his back to Grantaire.

“Sure she was.  The scars from when you clawed your way out of your last one are also exaggerating.”

Enjolras turned to face Grantaire.  “I’ll take my binder off when you put on more practical clothes.”

“I don’t think I own practical clothes.”

“Well then, I guess we’ll both have to resign ourselves to disappointment and move on.”

“I doubt your resignation will last.”

“Will yours?”

The front door was wrenched open and slammed shut before Grantaire could reply, and Cosette stormed into the kitchen.  The mud the clung to her boots on the way in made a smacking noise as it hit the tile.

“Me and Jehan just found two new wolves a few miles away,” Cosette panted.  “Leave it to us to do that on a walk.” She raised an eyebrow at Grantaire. “Do you have better clothes and the van keys?”

Grantaire hopped off the counter and ran past her towards the stairs.  “Give me, like, twenty seconds.”

Grantaire managed to pull on pants and a sweater within a minute, grabbed the keys to the van where he’d left them on his dresser, and he definitely did not almost trip on his way back downstairs.  He poked his head back into the kitchen.

“I’m good to go.”

Grantaire ignored the irritated look Enjolras shot his way as Cosette followed him out of the kitchen.

Grantaire also ignored Enjolras’ lack of a chest binder when he, Cosette, and Jehan returned with a semiconscious Marius and Éponine in tow.

 

Enjolras starts spending a lot more time with Grantaire once June hits.  

Cosette and Enjolras left a few hours ago for their traditional fancy lunch for Cosette’s birthday and the house is fairly quiet.  Feuilly and Bahorel are at their respective jobs, Éponine is in the basement with Combeferre and Joly - probably being told the observed effects of the last drug tests - Bossuet and Courfeyrac are continuing their mission to expose Marius to all the media he missed as a child, and Jehan and Musichetta both refuse to rise before twelve on the weekends.  Grantaire, not daring to brave any of the other activities, is going through the kitchen cupboards and making a list of what needs to be bought. Combeferre usually takes this job on, but seeing as he’s been neck deep in drugs for the past few days, Grantaire has no problem carrying out the task in his place.

Once he hits cupboard number twenty, Grantaire wants to apologize to Combeferre because there aren’t many tasks more tedious than sorting through cupboards and crossing off things on your list because someone put the cereal in the tea cupboard.  Although, Grantaire doubts that Combeferre often deals with the crushing disappointment of realizing that he was the one to put the cereal in the tea cupboard in the first place.

Grantaire doesn’t even hear the front door opening and closing, so when he turns around and sees Cosette in the kitchen he jumps.

“Some days I think we need to get you a bell or something,” Grantaire tells her.

Cosette grins.  “I would absolutely make you regret that decision within minutes.  Your presence is being requested in the car.”

There’s a pause before Grantaire asks, “Why?”

“Because Enjolras wants to spend time with you,” Cosette explains.  She walks around the kitchen island and takes the cereal box out of Grantaire’s hand.  She opens it, takes out a handful of cereal and shoves it in her mouth. “And he’s too much of an anxious mess to come ask you to go somewhere himself,” she adds while chewing.

Grantaire decides against asking her why she’s eating when she just got back from a large meal, but it’s a close thing.  “Don’t you think I’m a bit underdressed?”

Cosette’s eyes drop to look at Grantaire’s frayed pajamas.  She shrugs. “Go put on some better pants. Otherwise, you’re fine.”

“And just to be clear,” Grantaire says as he walks out of the kitchen and towards the stairs, “you’re not fucking with me?”

Cosette’s second handful of cereal hovers just above the open box.  “Why would I be?”

It’s a testament to how much he’s improved that he can’t immediately think of any reasons.

Grantaire rushes upstairs without answering her, which he’ll apologize for later.  He quickly changes into his most recently cleaned pair of jeans, and tries not to trip on his way back down the stairs.  He takes a deep breath as he slips into his shoes and opens the door. He catches sight of Enjolras in his miniscule car, his finger tapping the steering wheel.  Grantaire opens the passenger side door, and Enjolras jumps. They both steel themselves as Grantaire closes the door.

“So, Cosette said you wanted me?”

“Yes, well,” Enjolras shifts in his seat.  “I meant what I said back in October. Though if you thought otherwise I can’t blame you.”

Grantaire leans back into the seat, although there isn’t much room to lean in any direction.  

“So you went to me by getting me to go to you?” he asks, much more teasing than accusatory.

“I don’t want to force myself into your life.”  Enjolras resumes his finger tapping. It took Grantaire a full year of living with him before he realized that it’s not a habit born of irritation.  

“You don’t have to indulge me, but I don’t really know how to convey that while still showing that I’m interested.  And we all know how terrible I am at being balanced.”

“Self deprecation doesn’t suit you, even if you’re right.”  Grantaire lightly nudges Enjolras’ arm with his elbow, already prepared with the excuse of the car being too damn small for him to sit comfortably if the casual touch isn’t welcome.  “But you’re trying, even though you don’t have to.”

Enjolras smiles.  “You know I do.”

Grantaire shakes his head fondly in return.  “Well then, I’ll try not to disappoint. Now, are we going anywhere or will we just sit in the driveway for the afternoon?”

Enjolras turns the key in the ignition.  “Is there anywhere you want to go?”

Grantaire shrugs.  “Anywhere you’re willing to take me.”

“I can think of a few places.  And you won’t, you know?” Enjolras looks him in the eye as he adjusts himself in his seat, getting ready to back out.  “Disappoint me.”

Grantaire decides to not remind Enjolras that he already has.

 

Grantaire sat on the back porch, soaking wet with only his damp shirt and jeans to protect against the chill.  He’d been sitting there longer than he would have liked and he was seconds away from grabbing and pouring the second water bottle he’d brought outside over himself to speed up the process.

He saw a hand reach down and take it from him out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t bother to turn and see who it was.  He had a pretty good idea anyway.

“You shouldn’t be doing this,” Enjolras said and sat down where the bottle used to be.  He held it in his hands and looked like he was considering throwing it out into the yard, out of both their reaches.  “You can make it to November.”

“My whole life’s pile of ‘woulda, shoulda, coulda’, so what’s one more?”

Enjolras looked at him as if he were trying to decipher Grantaire - a look that Grantaire was used to by now.  

“You told me that you didn’t invite it,” Enjolras said.

Grantaire huffed, something akin to a laugh.  “Being too tired to fight it counts as invitation now?”

“No, but drenching yourself and sitting out in the cold does.”  

Grantaire shrugged, still not looking at Enjolras.  “A quick surrender is better than waiting it out.”

Enjolras shook his head, but didn’t say anything.  He opened his mouth and closed it a few times, but apparently words just weren’t coming to him.

He finally seemed to settle on asking “How’d you end up like this?”

Grantaire chuckled.  “You’re gonna have to be a bit more specific.  If you mean as I am right now, you’ve already got a good idea.”  He nodded towards the water bottle Enjolras is still keeping from him.  “But I have a feeling you mean one of the many other things that lead me here.”

Enjolras looked down at the bottle again before he replied.

“You said you trusted someone you shouldn’t have.  What did they promise you?”

Before Grantaire could say anything, Enjolras continued.

“You don’t have to tell me.  I know I’m getting invasive again.”

“Why are you even asking?”

Enjolras looked at him with the deciphering look again, but with far more intensity than Grantaire expected.  “I’m tired of you being a complete mystery to me. I’m used to people telling me about themselves freely, even though it takes some people longer than others to start doing so.  But most of the things I know about you are second-hand tidbits, a habit or two I’ve observed, and occasionally answers to questions I ask. It’s high time I start going to you instead of expecting you to come to me.”  

Grantaire had to look away from Enjolras, nowhere near confident in his ability to maintain anything approaching a neutral expression in the face of those words.

“However,” Enjolras also looked away; his gaze shifted to the label on the bottle which he began to remove, “I shouldn’t have started with something _that_ personal.”

Silence hung between them again.  Grantaire’s skin twitched, the chill finally starting to seep into him.

“Escape,” he eventually said.  “A way to get out of my own head instead of stewing in it.”

He saw Enjolras nod out of the corner of his eye.

“It was escape for me too,” Enjolras said.  He looked out to the forest ahead of them, folding the removed label in on itself as he spoke.  “Although more of a physical one. I never tried to run away as a kid so the first time I did it I meant it.  The first car that stopped for me ended up being driven by someone greatly overestimating how long she had left before that year’s shift.”  He turned to Grantaire again. “Hardly the same, I know. But needing to just get out so badly that you take the first option given? I get that.”

“If you get it then why are you trying to stop me?” Grantaire snapped.  Even before the words came out, he knew he shouldn’t have said them, but since when has he been one for impulse control?

“If there’s one thing both of us should be able to agree on it’s that the first option isn’t necessarily the best one.”

“Good thing this is really the second option then.  You can’t begrudge me choosing the lesser of two evils.”

Enjolras’ grip on the label tightened, causing it to tear.  “They’re pretty damn equal if you ask me.”

Grantaire sighed.  “I know.”

It hadn’t even taken Grantaire a week to figure out that the lack of alcohol in the house was far from an oversight.  He freely admitted that having to make the conscious choice to get someone to drive him into town was an effective dissuader from falling off the wagon.

“But one’s something I can at least try to recover from,” Grantaire continued.  “Even when, some days, I don’t see the point in it.”

“You’re still trying.  You want to and are making an effort, and that’s the most important part of it.”

“Yeah, because that’s working out so well for you.”

Grantaire will beat himself up over that later, but he felt the familiar pain flare in his joints and he knew he wouldn’t have to sit with his guilt for long.

Enjolras, who had been holding the bottle up with his knees, let it drop onto the stairs below them.

“Now you’re just being cruel.”

“You scare all of us, you know?  It’s honestly a relief when you come back upstairs looking disappointed,” Grantaire admitted.

It was.  A disappointed Enjolras was always preferable to the one who slept for nearly three days after, to the one who spent nearly a month with his facial features stuck somewhere between canine and man, to the one who shifted in September the year before.

“None of you have any idea what you’re doing so why bother putting yourself through that shit?”

Enjolras looked away and Grantaire figured it’s his turn to subject Enjolras to a prying gaze.

“I have to,” Enjolras eventually said.  “If I don’t believe that everything I’ve done and everything I will do helps us, if I think I can’t do it, then what else am I going to do?  If my purpose in all this is to take the brunt of our failures then so be it. It means I’m doing something. Standing by and letting things happen has never been my forte, and I don’t intend to let it become one.”

“I believe in you.”

Grantaire forced himself not to turn away when Enjolras met his gaze.

“I’m not good at showing it, so much to the point where I wouldn’t blame you for thinking I’m messing with you right now.  But I do.”

“You believe in me, but you don’t support me?”

“Look, you’re losing me and Cosette next year.  Valjean’s already gone and will be gone a second time sooner rather than later.  Bahorel and Jehan are following close behind the year after, and then you’re losing yourself.  If you had all the time and resources you needed, I’m sure that all of you could find some remedy to this.  But as things are? All I see are doomed people setting themselves up for failure, and soon it won’t be failures that we can all bounce back from.”

Grantaire took the opportunity to steal the water bottle back.  He stood up and walked down into the yard before uncapping it and dousing himself in an attempt to not let any splash onto Enjolras.  He heard Enjolras rise behind him.

“Grantaire -”

He’s interrupted by the crack of Grantaire’s bones - a sound that felt louder than it really was - as the hands around the bottle began to change.

Grantaire felt the unspoken words left between them, even as he reached the treeline and lost the use of words entirely.

 

Explaining the idea goes well until they actually have to explain it.

The fact that there was a new potential cure brewing in the lower level of the house wasn’t a secret, but only five of them really knew the details.  Six if you count the one who isn’t fully aware of how they plan to test it once it’s no longer just an idea.

“While we’ve tried raising both the internal and external temperatures at the same time before, we haven’t tried raising them to this extent,” Enjolras, the sixth person in question, explains.  

“So what was the danger keeping us from going this far before?” Jehan asks.  “There must be some great risk to it or we would have tried it already.”

“Well, for starters,” Joly answers, “we’ve introduced some less than legal substances into the equation, which we didn’t really have a way to access until recently.”

Éponine offers up a mock salute from her seat on the floor, her back resting against the armchair Cosette is occupying.

“And using them for any purpose comes with risks,” Combeferre adds.  “There’s also the fact that there’s little room for error when it comes to bringing the temperature back down since prolonged exposure to that kind of heat is dangerous to the body, but if we go too cold too fast then we could risk anything from reviving any remaining wolf cells to hypothermia.”  Combeferre takes a deep breath before continuing. “The only instance of something like this working ended with the person in question dying. We really have no idea what could possibly happen in the aftermath, even if everything goes perfectly.”

There’s a pause as everyone thinks his last comment over.  Grantaire watches Éponine reach up behind her to pat Cosette’s knee, and Cosette ruffles Éponine’s hair in thanks.

“How are we doing this then?” Bahorel asks.

“Look no further, for your lab rat is here.”

Grantaire chooses to believe that the questioning looks he gets in reply are due to him speaking so quickly and not immediate disbelief.  In his defence, he needed to be quick about it to beat Enjolras to the punch.

“Sorry, what?” Enjolras says, looking far more anxious than Grantaire ever wants to see him look.

“Given how little time they have, it’s for the best for Grantaire and Cosette to be the first to undergo it,” Combeferre tells him, caught between trying to be clinical and soothing.

Grantaire feigns casualness by picking at his fingernails.  “Besides, I suggested the whole thing in the first place so I can’t really expect anyone to believe it’ll work if I don’t put my money where my mouth is.”

He doesn’t even have to look up to tell that no one knows what to do with themselves.  Silence in a house this occupied isn’t something that comes often and it never stays for long.  Grantaire never expected to be the cause of the longest silence this house has seen - well, when it has occupants - but he can’t say he’s proud of it.

“Makes sense.”

Grantaire looks up at Enjolras and, for the life of him, can’t figure out what Enjolras’ face is trying to convey.  He’s not sure Enjolras even knows himself.

They both take notice of everyone else also looking to Enjolras, waiting for something, though Grantaire’s sure none of them know what.

“Excuse me for a minute,” Enjolras says before he turns on his heel and leaves the room.

Grantaire feels everyone’s attention move to him, but he knows what everyone expects him to do.  He rises and follows Enjolras.

He hears the back door open and close in rapid succession, and soon repeats the noise himself as he steps outside.  Enjolras leans against the railing, tapping his index finger rapidly against the wood.

“I probably should have told you earlier instead of waiting for dramatic effect,” Grantaire says as he walks over to stand next to Enjolras.

“Probably.” is all he gets in reply.

“You know that’s not actually what I was doing, right?  I just had no idea how to even bring it up.”

Enjolras sighs.  “I know. I still don’t make things like this easy for you, do I?”

“No matter how much you want to, you can’t singlehandedly fix all my issues.  But you’re definitely helping,” Grantaire tells him, crossing his arms on the railing and then resting his head on them.  “If we’d been in this situation this time last year I would have waited until Joly or Combeferre brought it up. Hell, if this was happening three years ago I wouldn’t have even shown up and just left them to deal with the fallout alone.”

Enjolras looks at him briefly, before averting his gaze again.  “You think this counts as fallout?”

“Not that I want to take credit for causing it, but this is the most distressed I’ve ever seen you.”

“I’ve had worse.”

Grantaire knows immediately that’s meant to be reassuring and not dismissive.  He nearly tells Enjolras so to prove that some definite progress has been made, but Enjolras continues before he can say a word.

“Speaking of taking credit, why didn’t you before now?  In all honesty, I assumed Joly and Combeferre thought it up themselves and never even questioned it.  But in my defence, they never told me otherwise.”

“Well, they did ground the idea in something resembling reality and did most of the work, so I’m more than happy to give them most of the credit here,” Grantaire says.  “And I can’t say I think I deserve any recognition for suggesting the concept, nor do I really want any. All the same, it’d feel a bit hypocritical to sit back and let someone else be the guinea pig.”

Enjolras nods.  “I don’t volunteer to be the test subject for the glory of being a success story,” he explains, while Grantaire wonders why he feels he has to.  “It just feels like that’s what I’m supposed to do.”

“For yourself or for everyone else?”

Enjolras lets out a shaky breath.  “Both? I wish I could say it was an entirely selfless thing, but I don’t know, maybe I think I have to prove something.”

“I think I know you well enough by now to promise you that, whatever expectations you’re holding yourself to, you think they’re a lot higher than they are.”  Grantaire raises a hand to stop Enjolras from interrupting. “I know I just said I didn’t want to be a hypocrite and now I’m giving you advice that I don’t listen to myself, but hear me out.

“No one in there thinks you have the answer to everything.  We know we’re all making it up as we go. Everyone gravitates towards you, sure, but at the end of the day you’re just a human being.  Just because we want answers, someone to tell us that what we’re doing and how we’re doing it is right, doesn’t mean we expect you to give us that.  Right now, you’re our friend who’s just as lost as we are and obviously upset about something. All anyone wants from you right now is to know whether or not you’re going to be okay.  And honestly? That’s all we want from you most of the time.”

Neither of them speak for a while.  Grantaire keeps looking at Enjolras and quickly turning away, wanting to check on him, but not wanting to stare.

“I’ve told you before that I need to believe each attempt will work,” Enjolras eventually says, his voice still remarkably steady despite his unsteady breathing.  “And I do think this is going to work. But now I can’t stop thinking about what happens if it doesn’t.”

“What, you never worried about that when you thought you were going to test it?”

Enjolras’ finger tapping gets louder.

“Enjolras -”

He runs his hand through his hair.  “I’m making it sound like the minute I’m not involved I suddenly have no faith in it, but that’s not it.  I just… I hate being helpless. If I have to face the possibility of some horrible result then at least I chose to face it myself.”  He turns to face Grantaire. “Going into this knowing all the risks when I thought it would be me wasn’t easy. I won’t lie to you and say that I didn’t once think about what would happen if it didn’t work, but suffering that failure myself would be better than having to watch it happen to someone else.”

“Now that it’s not you, you can’t tell if the ends justify the means,” Grantaire says.

“But they have to,” Enjolras replies.  

Grantaire looks out into the yard and straightens up, uncrossing his arms and laying his hands flat on the railing.

“You’re allowed to be scared, you know,” he says after another pause.  “That one time I made a joke about you being made of stone was indeed a joke.  Like I told you, I always thought you guys, if anyone, could do it. But that didn’t stop me from getting scared shitless whenever I knew another attempt was coming.”

He rests the side of his hand against Enjolras’ own.

“I know I haven’t given you any real reason to trust me when I say this, but I’m going to try my damndest to get through it.  I won’t just lie back and let it ruin me.”

“I’ve always believed in you,” Enjolras tells him.

Grantaire surprises himself by not falling over upon hearing that.

“You made it difficult sometimes, and I know those times were on purpose, but you’ve never been an exception to the rule.”  Enjolras smiles for the first time that night. It’s only small, but it’s far better than the cornered look he’d been sporting before.  “No one really wants to be miserable. I always thought you’d start to recover on your own terms. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around how different from my own your terms were.”

“Can you now?” Grantaire asks, as he has no idea what else to say.

“Now more than ever.”  His smile fades as he speaks.  “I knew it must be even more nerve wracking from the outside, but I’m only just now realizing how bad it is.”

They’re silent again for a moment.

Grantaire nudges Enjolras’ hand with his.

“I won’t let you down.”

Enjolras smiles again.

“I know.”

 

He can’t think.

Thoughts fly across his mind - images, sounds, patterns, memories - but he can’t grasp them for more than a second.  

He’s never conscious enough to put names to the faces he sees, even though it’s the same three faces each time.  Two of them keep talking to him, but he can only catch a few words and they never stay in his mind for long. He doesn’t know what he says to them, but he knows he’s speaking.

He’s too warm.  He doesn’t think he’s ever felt this warm.  He knows warm is too mild a word, but it’s the one word he’s been able to fixate on.

He dreams without knowing they’re dreams.

He’s alone on a road and the further he walks, the more trees appear.  He turns around to go back the way he came but there’s no road behind him anymore.  He keeps walking - he can’t bring himself to run - and the trees only get thicker. The woods don’t end; he’s not sure they even began.  All he knows is that now he’s stuck there, but he has to keep walking.

Tholomyès finds him again.  Every bar he goes to, he’s always there, waiting to introduce himself, waiting to offer a helping hand in getting him out of his own mind.  In something approaching clarity, he wonders if maybe he should take him up on the offer and put an end to this cycle.

Everyone’s speaking to him, but he can’t understand a word.  He knows he should. The only thing he can parse out is that they’re upset that he won’t answer them.  They all keep moving around the room whenever he looks away from them. Despite them looking nothing alike, he can’t tell if he’s looking at Jehan or Feuilly.

He’s at the Thénardier house.  He’s never been there, but he knows that’s where he is.  Éponine opens the door.  She’s not happy to see him.

Someone holds him.  He’s too tired to roll over and see who it is.  He can feel arms around him, a hand rests in his line of vision, he hears breathing behind him.  He wants to feel safe, but he keeps expecting something to go wrong.

He’s in a crowd but he can’t touch anyone.  He tries to bump into people, but they swiftly move aside.  He goes to put his hand on various shoulders, but each time the person ducks out of the way.  He can hear someone trying to get his attention, but he can’t tell where they are. No one’s interested in helping him figure it out.

He -

He’s awake and he’s cold.  He’s still warm, too warm, but now he’s shivering.  All he can hear are voices talking about his temperature.  All he can think about is that he can’t feel the wolf.

There’s no bile rising in his throat.  

His skin isn’t moving; his bones aren’t changing shape.

Grantaire is alone inside his own head again.

“You’re going to be fine.”

Grantaire pries open his eyes to see both Joly and Enjolras leaning over him.  He wants to ask where Combeferre is but finds he has trouble getting words out.

“We’re still in the process of cooling you down,” Joly tells him, gently tapping the cool cloth on his forehead.  “And, I’m not going to lie, you smell terrible. But for the first and only time, we think it’s a good terrible.”

Grantaire nods.  He can’t smell what they can, and he knows that’s a relief on more than one front.

“You pulled through,” Enjolras says, smiling down at him.

Grantaire manages to croak out a response.

“You knew I would.”

 

The following two weeks are rather harrowing.  Everyone steps in to help so that Joly and Combeferre aren’t doing everything themselves the entire time.  They handle everyone one at a time, still cautious of potential error if they spread themselves too thin. Some wolves hang on longer than others, but they all somehow come out the other end alive and more themselves than they have been in years.

Everyone starts working on getting their lives back on track.  Courfeyrac digs out his old travel planner, hoping to pick back up where he left off seven years ago.  He adds a few places Marius wants to see since he’s agreed to go with Courfeyrac. Enjolras finally gets to book an appointment to consult about starting on testosterone, no longer having to fear what might show up in his blood work - well, once the remnants of the drugs are entirely out of his system.

Éponine insists on having Azelma and Gavroche at least come visit if not stay permanently.  Due to her dropping off the map for a while, getting custody over her siblings won’t be easy, but luckily the three of them still have Mabeuf in their corner.  She’s been much happier since they arrived, much to everyone’s relief. Before Gavroche and Azelma got there a lot of her attention was focused on how Montparnasse wasn’t answering her after she told him about their success.

The sheer number of applications being filled out - for jobs, university, and what felt like everything else under the sun - keep everyone too busy for them to obsessively check the weather forecast like they did in years past.

Grantaire wakes up on Sunday morning to the first snowfall he’s seen in years.  He goes to the window to watch it. He catches sight of people moving down in the backyard and laughs when he sees Bossuet slip on a patch of ice that Joly managed to traverse with no problem.

Grantaire doesn’t bother with the pretense of getting dressed and leaves his room in his sweatpants and t-shirt that are both falling apart - and have been for months.  He catches the tail end of a conversation between Éponine and her brother on their way out the door about whether or not Gavroche needs to wear a coat

Grantaire descends the stairs and goes into the kitchen, fully prepared to take advantage of everyone else being outside to steal all of the marshmallows out of the Lucky Charms box.

“Morning.”

Instead Enjolras makes him jump when he rounds the corner.

“Why are you on the floor?”

Enjolras looks up at Grantaire, looking far less guilty than someone caught with their hand buried in a box of Cheerios should.

“Someone put these on the bottom shelf,” he says, tapping the cupboard door across from him with his foot, “and I just haven’t bothered to stand back up yet.”

“Uh-huh,” Grantaire replies, more in disbelief than acknowledgement.

Enjolras shoves his procured handful of cereal in his mouth, maintaining eye contact out of what seemed like defiance.

“It was actually so I wouldn’t have to bother with a bowl because no one could see me,” Enjolras says, raising his now empty hand to indicate the island he’s leaning against - or, well, hiding behind.

“Sorry for ruining your covert operation,” Grantaire tells him, stepping over Enjolras’ pajama clad legs to get to the cereal cupboard.  How Enjolras managed to look put together while sitting on the floor in an oversized shirt and plaid pants, eating cereal directly from the box, the world will never know.

“Do you and Cosette have something against bowls?” Grantaire asks.  “I’ve yet to see either of you eat cereal like normal people.”

“We didn’t have a working dishwasher for a while so we had to do the dishes by hand,” Enjolras explains, closing the cereal box and sliding it back into the now open cupboard.  “We started eating it from the box to avoid making more work for ourselves and just kept doing it even after it got replaced. Old habits die hard and all that.”

Enjolras stands up.

“Speaking of which,” he continues, “I’ve got something I’ve been meaning to tell you, but I keep putting it off.”

Grantaire raises an eyebrow.  “Never really took you for the procrastinating type.”

“I’m not really.  I just don’t think I’m used to the fact that I don’t have to keep putting my life on hold anymore.”

Grantaire closes the cupboard door and leans against it.  He gestures for Enjolras to go on.

“I love you.”

Grantaire can barely even blink before Enjolras continues.

“We don’t have to do anything about it, but after everything that’s happened, I wanted you to know.  You always interested me, but I wasn’t in love with you until we actually tried to know each other. Again, nothing has to come from this; I just think that you deserve to know.”

“Why now?  And not earlier?” Grantaire asks once he finally feels like he can form words again.

If Enjolras wasn’t expecting that response, he does a good job of not showing it.

“Partly nerves.  I could never really find the right time to say it.  I wanted to tell you the night before you tested the cure, but I was worried you’d dismiss it as me being overly emotional or that it would come across as me trying to guilt you out of doing it.”  Enjolras leans against the counter next to him. “I probably should have said it anyway.”

Grantaire has no idea how he would have responded that night.  He doesn’t really have any idea how he’s responding now. Apparently he got so good at avoiding thinking about his feelings for Enjolras that he hasn’t even thought to voice them yet.

“I love you too.”

Enjolras’ expression changes from hopeful to overjoyed.

“You do?”

Grantaire nods, smiling.  “I’ve been attracted to you since day one, but the feelings were a gradual thing.  I don’t think there’s a world out there where I wouldn’t have somehow fallen in love with you.  Never thought you’d reciprocate though.”

“Well, I do,” Enjolras says, inching closer.  

“You still sure we don’t have to do anything about it?” Grantaire asks, doing the same.

“In hindsight, that seems very counterproductive.”  

“Well, we can’t have that.”

Their hands find each other where they were travelling along the counter and their fingers don’t hesitate to intertwine.

“Can I kiss you?” Grantaire asks.

“I think you already know the answer to that question,” Enjolras replies, his eyes full of affection.

“I still want to hear you say it,” Grantaire teases.

Enjolras’ smile grows.  “Kiss me.”

It’s the best kiss Grantaire has ever had.  Admittedly, he hasn’t been kissed all that often.  He’s pretty sure Enjolras won’t mind fixing that.

He moves his free hand to Enjolras’ cheek and gently strokes his face with his thumb.  Enjolras’ hand finds a place to rest on Grantaire’s waist. They stay like that when they pull apart, neither of them needing to search one another’s face to find the love that’s there.

The sound of Bahorel and Courfeyrac laughing draws their attention to the window over the sink where they can just make out the sight of Jehan throwing off their coat and falling back into the snow on the ground, tempting fate with their remaining thin layer of clothes.

“Do you want to join them?” Enjolras asks.

“Eventually,” Grantaire replies.  “I think they’ll forgive us if we make them wait for us a little bit longer.”

They don’t end up joining their friends outside, preferring to stay in the warmth that surrounds them instead.  They know they don’t need to be afraid of the cold anymore and that’s more than enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This took me so long to write because I kept abandoning it for months at a time, but it's finally done.


End file.
